Kevin Sligar left building career — Focus

Kevin Sligar realized he needed an alternative career when the housing market started to slow down. Up until last year Sliger built investment duplexes with Rob Wold, his partner in a firm called Valley Builders.

Sligar said the building trade went well for about 3 1/2 years. “Then overnight we were dead in the water,” he said. “Banks wouldn’t lend money unless the duplexes were pre-sold. The spec’ market was down and banks wouldn’t take the risk.”
Fortunately, as the market slowly declined, the two builders had no leftover inventory, no empty structures awaiting buyers that wouldn’t materialize. “We were just extremely lucky,” Sligar said. “We sold the last duplex before the bubble burst.”
Wold stayed with the business, but Sligar opted to buy into his father-in-law’s company, Unified Office Services.
Unified Office Services was founded in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1986 by Lindy Larson, a Boise native. His brother, Larry Larson, bought the Treasure Valley branch four years ago. In 2007, Sligar purchased half his father-in-law’s business. Now, he spends his time building a customer base for the company’s office supplies and furniture.
Unified Office Services also sells janitorial and break room supplies, a health care line for doctors’ offices, and safety products as well.
Sligar said he uses the same skills in his new business as in his former one: sales and marketing. He earned a master’s degree in education from Boise State University and believes the degree has been useful in his new career. “It allows you to learn anything you’re willing to learn and apply yourself to,” he said.
In one year he has grown Unified Office Services by 45 percent, he said. The company now has over 100 small to mid-sized businesses as clients. That particular market niche has worked well for Unified.
“It’s hard to compete with the large vendors,” said Sligar. Big firms have an exclusive contract with big box office supply stores that, because of their size, can offer products at a significant discount.
“It comes down to service,” Sligar stated. “We develop relationships with our customers based on reciprocal loyalty and trust.”
The company’s “bread and butter” is its office supplies, and it offers well over 1,000 environmentally friendly products. “It’s a huge trend,” said Sligar.
Like many solutions to burgeoning landfills and other environmental ills, some green products have their drawbacks. Sligar explained recycled paper, for instance, costs more to buy and oftentimes leaves companies pitting a desire to be eco-friendly against their bottom line.
Sligar, who educates himself on all issues relevant to his products, said one of the reasons behind the higher cost is that recycled paper is more difficult to manufacture because it is put through de-inking and other processes not necessary with “virgin” paper.
Also, paper can only be recycled five to seven times before its fibrous components completely break down.
Sometimes, he said, conscientious businesses attempt to meet their needs for large amounts of office products by ordering what they need, but using them more conservatively.
Sligar said the marginal economy the nation is currently coping with has not put a huge dent in Unified’s sales, but nonetheless many firms are tightening their belts. “Whether the economy is up or down, people need supplies. They may cut down,” he said.
He said, “It’s our diverse and expansive product line” that keeps the company flush.
He acknowledged the rising cost of gasoline is affecting Unified – which offers free delivery of its products – but said, “You have to adjust.”
Sligar stated the office commodities market in the Treasure Valley is highly competitive, and by that he’s not referring to “the big guys” such Staples and Office Max but rather the other small to medium-sized firms that dot the area.
He said he works hard to maintain his present clients and not lose them to the competition. “The first thing you want to retain is your current customer base,” he said.
Sligar stressed he doesn’t intend to grow the company by stealing his competitors’ clientele. “I don’t operate like that,” he said. “The shark businessman gets up and sharpens his teeth every day.” He said, instead, he has a gregarious nature that serves him well in business.
So far, Unified Office Services is a two-man operation – Sligar and Larson – but Sligar has compiled a five-year plan that includes adding two more delivery drivers and one administrative worker. He and his father-in-law “wear a lot of hats right now, sometimes putting in 12-hour days.”
They work from home offices and maintain a 250-square-foot warehouse in Bethel Court in Boise. The five-year plan also includes a combined office and warehouse site.
Sligar, who learned a lot from his last business venture, is prepared to keep his new business thriving well into his five-year realm and beyond.

For more information about Unified Office Services, visit www.myunified.com.